By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Parliament's Brexit negotiator will propose that Britons can have "associate citizenship" of the EU once their country leaves, but senior officials have dismissed the idea as an unworkable gimmick. Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister, told a parliamentary committee on Thursday that he would push to include the proposal in a negotiating mandate that fellow lawmakers will give him in March before talks start. "It's a good idea," Verhofstadt told the constitutional affairs committee of a suggestion by a fellow liberal lawmaker that Britons could opt to live on the continent as "associate citizens" and retain a vote in EU parliamentary elections.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's coastguard rescued 34 men, 14 women and 18 minors from a rubber boat in the Aegean Sea on Friday, it said. The migrants said they were from Syria. Having picked them up in Greek waters after a request for help from European Union border agency Frontex, the coastguard will take them to the Greek island of Chios, a spokesman said. The number of migrants arriving on Greek islands has dropped sharply since March when Turkey agreed with the EU to prevent people making the sea crossing, in return for financial and diplomatic incentives. ...